Lufthansa Miles & More Returns To Points Transfers After Six Years — Now 1:1 Instant Partner With Rove

Lufthansa’s Miles & More has two great advantages.

1. There aren’t a bunch of U.S. transfer partners, so there’s not much demand for the awards they make available to their own members – which is greater than what’s offered to partners.

2. You can use their miles to book first class awards far in advance, while first class is nearly impossible with partner miles (and only then very close to departure).

There’s a Lufthansa credit card in the U.S. It’s a sleeper for the very specific niche of booking Lufthansa (and Swiss) awards that other programs like Air Canada, United, and LifeMiles can’t. But their points aren’t broadly available. Until now?

For several years Lufthansa hasn’t had U.S. transfer partners. They even dropped out of hotel points transfer. Their interpretation of German payments law was that these transfers were illegal.

So imagine my surprise that they’re now a Rove transfer partner, and Rove says points should transfer instantly and at a 1:1 ratio. That makes Rove’s transfer partners:

• Star Alliance: Air India Maharaja Club, Lufthansa Miles & More, Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus, Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles

• oneworld: Cathay Pacific Asia Miles, Finnair Plus, Qatar Airways Privilege Club

• SkyTeam: Aeromexico Rewards, Air France/KLM Flying Blue, Vietnam Airlines Lotusmiles

• Non-alliance: Etihad Guest, Hainan Airlines Fortune Wings Club

• Hotel: Accor Live Limitless

I’d say they need to add Avianca LifeMiles and Air Canada Aeroplan, but this is an otherwise-thoughtful list. They’ve got two Avios programs, the best SkyTeam program, and good Star Alliance coverage.

And it’s great to see Lufthansa return to points transfers after more than six years. It was 2019 when they abruptly terminated the ability to transfer points from Marriott, Hyatt, Hilton and others.

The explanation at the time was that Germany’s Payment Services Supervision Act was being interpreted to count a mileage transfer as a payment service which requires registration, government supervision, and “strong customer authentication” among other requirements. (A co-brand credit card will already meet these rules, but transfers will not.)

In 2022, Miles & More started selling miles again, working with points.com, using a workaround bundling miles with other offers which makes it impossible to assign a price just to the miles being purchased, and therefore less obviously making this a payment transaction for their Miles & More currency.

Returning to actual transfers, though, is a big step – and could clear the way for other bank transfer currencies to partner with them.